BitTorrent Beefs Up Network Capabilities 164
1sockchuck writes "BitTorrent Inc. is boosting its network capacity as it prepares to become a centralized hub for legal video content. In May, BitTorrent announced a deal with Warner Brothers to distribute its TV and movie content via the BT platform. It has now lined up IP transit for streaming videos at one gigabit per second."
Now who will I choose... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now who will I choose... (Score:2)
Re:Now who will I choose... (Score:5, Funny)
zOMG FIST PSOT (Score:2)
pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:5, Informative)
Do you know how bittorrent works? The maximum theoretical download speed is the seed speed, regardless of the number of downloaders. With 1 Gbit/s, you can stream 500 different torrents at 2mbps to a any number of people (neglecting tracker bandwidth, as it were). That's assuming that they're all uploading at the same speed that they're downloading.
If they're uploading significantly slower than they're downloading, yes, the swarm speed will go down. However any intelligent seed will cut your download speed correspondingly. That's how bittorrent works.
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:5, Interesting)
Most people have less bandwidth for uploading than downloading. So yes, the swarm speed will go down.
And if I pay $ for my movie, I won't seed it full speed for 2 weeks after downloading, which I may do in case of my favourite linux distro torrents.
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
And if I pay $ for my movie, I won't seed it full speed for 2 weeks after downloading, which I may do in case of my favourite linux distro torrents.
The real issue here is that BitTorrent is not a particularly efficient way to distribute content. It's a way to "pass the buck" of server hosting costs to the clients, but it's very inefficient.
For example, let's say that you are downloading a video via BitTorrent. Your computer connects as a peer to other computers that are also downloading the same video. When
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:3, Insightful)
BitTorrent, while requiring
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
Spot on, but that said, most of the binary newsgroups these days are loaded with copyright infringing material too. The ISP's don't tend to care and turn a blind eye to the fact they are hosting this material 'directly'. My ISP for instance offers access to most of these groups and the files therein, albeit with *horrib
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2, Insightful)
Also the fact that most ISP's have already abandoned NNTP servers (in spirit if not in body). That's why everyone who is serious about Usenet now has to pay 10-15$ a month for a commercial service like Easynews, Giganews or Astraweb. I used to, back when I had a fat pipe because I did most
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2, Insightful)
What you'll really want is an akamai-approach, but that way the studios can't hand off the costs to the ISPs like a bittorrent download does.
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
I know this isnt uncommon because a "slow" torrent suddenly goes very fast with only 20 people on it.
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
2Mbps is low?! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
We ended up going with a 4.5Mbps symmetrical circuit that a local company offers in the downtown area by connecting you via SDSL over a dry pair circuit.
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
It's 256K or 384K only during the night and early day. Between 14:00 and 23:00, it's more like 4K -- with pings of 4K ms, too.
While you pay through the nose for a T1, it does serve the nominal speed all the time it's up. And even if it goes down, it tends to get fixed in minutes, as opposed to hours or days.
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:3, Interesting)
I have Speakeasy's 6M/768k plan, and it's always 6M/768. It's never been down, and I've never seen any speeds lower than that (except when I'm connecting to a server that can't send data that fast
Their tech support is pretty good, too. My plan has 8 IPs, but I couldn't activate them on the web form. I sent them an e-mail at 11:00PM on a Friday night (yes, yes, setting up
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:2)
There are ISPs who are better and ISPs who are worse. I'm not a leftpondian, but the opinions about them I hear here on /. are full of praise for everything but the price.
If you want to see how bad it can be, visit Poland. Except for big cities, we suffer from a single monopolistic ISP which is the Mother of All Overse
Re:pft...1Gbit/s -1 FLAMEBAIT (Score:4, Insightful)
Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
Am I the only one who feels like the fool when I'm PAYING twice for content? Once to download, and a second time to upload that same data to the next fool?
I'm not an "info should be free" wacko by any means. But I'm also not going to sacrifice my precious bandwidth to make WB money. If you want to charge me for content, you pay for the fat pipes so that the consumer (us all) are satisfied.Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
The endproduct of this will be more expensive or flaky internet connections. If the oversold bandwidth that was chugging along happily suddenly fills up, everyone connected is screwed. Until the ISP upgrades their stuff accordingly (which could well mean laying new/more fiber), everyone has a crappy connection. Someone's gotta pay for the upgrades, and you can bet that those costs are going to make it to the consumers, and most likely fairly quickly. Either by changing their pricing structure, molesting upload bandwidth into nothingness, or starting a per-bit charge. Or leading up to tiered connections.
However it happens, you pay twice.
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
If it's regular bittorrent, it would just mean your downloads would be slow. Bittorrent has pretty well eliminated the need to ban people.
I'm generally not a fan of widespread media distribution by bittorrent (see my other posts), but IMHO improved infrastructur
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides that, bittorrent is bad for media distribution because you can't stream. Let's say you have a 2 mbit/s link to your home and want to watch a two-hour movie which happens to be encoded at 2 mbit/s. If the movie were sent from a server at a steady rate, you could start watching immediately. With bittorrent, you'd have to wait two hours.
Finally, I just don't see the point. They're going to be charging several dollars for each video download, yet the server bandwidth for that download is only worth about a nickle. It just doesn't avoid that much expense. As a customer, I'd rather pay the extra 0.5% to download from a server and start watching immediately, and keep my uplink for my own purposes.
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:3, Interesting)
What if you download the movie in small bits (heck, thats what bittorrent do) wouldnt you then be able to see that "bit" of movie? Second of all, this is not even new. http://www.tvkoo.com/ [tvkoo.com] has been doing this for years. (Someone makes a stream and hooks it up to their tracker, making it avaliable for everyone).
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
Already a non issue: prioritize the first xxx chunks and don't request any of the other chunks from peers (already possible and implemented).
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
I guess anything is possible with enough local buffering and network overcapacity. But I would still be interested to hear from people how well this currently works in practice. Relying on a bunch of voluntary, anonymous, low-bandwidth servers to deliver high-bandwidth, time-critical data seems optimistic to me. Especially since bittorrent is built around a tit-fo
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
If the file is popular and downloading at around 300kb/sec down you can start watching the movie in about 5-10 minutes without any brakes
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
The real bottlneck is the lines between the ISPs, and that bottleneck is mostly artifical constructed to keep bandwidth more expensive and valuable. Bittorrent clients will by nature prefer other clients within the same ISP because they can get good speed from them, and will therefore reduce the stress on those
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
That's an order of magnitude less than you would pay an Akamai or other professional content delivery company.
Price out saturated megabits, figure how many you need for peak load, and tell me where the nickel comes from.
Bittorrent makes use of the otherwise generally unused upstream found in user broadband connections. With a large
cloud, users gravitate to exchanging with people to whom they have the best connections
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
First, it remains to be seen whether the files will be multiple gigabytes. A one-hour show downloaded from bittorrent (actually 40 mins after removing commercials) is only 300 megs or so, and that's better quality and higher resolution than the iPod video downloads. I think 1.5 GB is a reasonable estimate,
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
Sort of. Think of it like a freeway. Your on-ramp might be idle, but it's the traffic flow on the major roads that matters. Nobody, least of all the cable companies, builds a network so that everybody can use 100% of their bandwidth all the time. That'd be like building a highway so that it has as many full lanes as on-ramps.
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't wanna contribute to the upload, you gotta pay them more because they need a bigger out pipe.
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
I personal
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
Sorry I don't mean that they are offering this, what I mean is if they didn't take advantage of viewers upload bandwidth, they would have to find this bandwidth elsewhere, which means higher cost... and guess who that higher cost would get passed on to?
So the choice is pay part cash part bandwidth, or pay more cash. They've figured most people would rather pay less, so have made the choice for you. If there's a market for people who'd rather pay more, I'm sur
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
Considering bittorrent has no geographical optimazation using a distribution platform like akamai would probably be cheaper.
But ofcourse this cooperation is done by the marketing and not by the technicaldepartment (as usual).
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
It would of course also be possible (and pretty simple) to write a tracker that tries to group clients primarly by their geographical location.
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
Before you were paying for the content with money, and for the distro with money; now you're paying for the content with money and the distro with bandwidth.
Re:Bittorrent -- distro paid for by consumers (Score:2)
Because you get a faster download overall than you would have otherwise gotten, you benefit from them using BT, as does everyone else.
What I want to know is (Score:5, Insightful)
Tee-Shirt (Score:3, Funny)
1GB/Sec (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1GB/Sec (Score:2)
Bring in... or send out? Presumably this is the size of their pipe, so you're saying they can support 50-60 viewers at a time (+small amount of bandwidth shared by viewers). That's not a hell of a lot.
It's also really inefficient... if only we could split/double up the IP packets at a latter stage, so a single packets would have multiple IP's, and get split up by routers along the way...
The other way I guess is ISP level proxies for it.
Re:1GB/Sec (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:1GB/Sec (Score:2)
Why would someone stay around to seed? In illegal BT downloads some people stick around because they feel they owe it to the other downloaders, with a commercial system no one would care because they paid for the download.
Re:1GB/Sec (Score:2)
Re:1GB/Sec (Score:5, Interesting)
A typical HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movie is going to be 15-30MB/s.
I'm not sure what kind of 1.7MB/s movie I'd be paying for.
Re:1GB/Sec (Score:2)
Duke City Shootout (Score:5, Informative)
It's not just the big studios. Smaller non-profit festivals are reaping huge exposure and benefits from allying with BitTorrent.
Every year for the past seven years, there's a film making festival called the Duke City Shootout in Albuquerque NM. The idea is that writers from all over the country submit a 10-12 page script, seven of the best get picked out, and the Shootout brings them to Albuquerque to help the writers film their scripts.
No, not pro writers. Guys like you and me. (Well, depending on who you are, it might just be me.)
Respected professionals in the film world (read: Morgan Freeman) are heavily involved behind the scenes, and some of them mentor the crews on the set. One week of madness later, you've got yourself seven brand new indie success stories and a whole lot of exhausted, happy people.
The Duke City Shootout is super cool, and a great place to get your hands on new and interesting video gear. It's literally top of the line digital tech. Apple, BitTorrent, Intel, and a host of other companies are footing the bill so that they can show what can be done by dedicated, creative amateurs with a little guidance and the right toys.
BitTorrent is one of the sponsors this year. They're going to distribute the winning films for free, and they've even got a backload of winners from years past. Admittedly it's not like downloading a complete cinematic experience -- the Duke City Shootout download will, for example, finish the day you start it.
Check it out for yourself: Duke City Shootout [dukecityshootout.org] home site, and the BitTorrent host [bittorrent.com] for the last year's winners.
</shill>
a centralized hub (Score:2)
Probably the thing they're doing wrong is kissing RIAA butt. Generalising: forced monopolies demand centralization, and hence scale horribly.
Ehhh... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't buy this. I think the MPAA just want to launch a regular distributor->consumer (as in, not-P2P) service under the BitTorrent-name so they can fool the regular joes this whole BitTorrent-thing has nothing at all to do with P2P. After all, real P2P is the complete opposite of their bussiness modell, so they probably don't want it generally accepted.
Re:Ehhh... (Score:2)
The whole freaking point of BitTorrent is to transfer files so you don't need a fat pipe. Why exactly do they need 1 gigabit per second to run a tracker?
Aha... a popular misconception, but BitTorrent is democratic in nature... that is, the more people are interested in it, the more distribution points there are. Since WB TV content isn't really that popular...
Re:Ehhh... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ehhh... (Score:2)
Re:Ehhh... (Score:2)
If they can't afford the servers to provide direct downloads to me then they have to provide some compensation to me for their use of my bandwidth... something other than the current level of expected customer service.
Re:Ehhh... (Score:2)
Re:Ehhh... (Score:2)
Re:Ehhh... (Score:2)
1G is a decent start and it will be interesting to see what the demand and upload speeds of clients will be. Of course the more popular the content, the larger the swarm will be; so it will largely self regulate.
The next most logical step is to place seeding servers at strategic locations to service the demand. This way download hotspots can be serviced from local seeding servers and the general swarm,
Streaming? (Score:3, Insightful)
Any attempt to explain is appreciated. Thanks!
J
Re:Streaming? (Score:2)
Re:Streaming? (Score:5, Informative)
There are some nifty things you can do for BitTorrent-assisted streaming, but that's not what they're up to right now.
Re:Streaming? (Score:2)
Streaming is a synonym for downloading if it's multimedia and you're tech-challenged.
Re:Streaming? (Score:2)
Re:Streaming? (Score:2)
Yeah, I know, but thanks anyway.
Re:Streaming? (Score:2)
Could you provide some reference materials? I've never heard of streaming media being referred to as a synonym for downloadable media and I'd be interested to know if I've really had my head in the sand or if you are just being a troll. Here are a few references pulled from a quick Google search.
http://www.clickandgovideo.ac.uk/Glossary.htm#S [clickandgovideo.ac.uk]
streaming: Process of sending media over the Internet or other network,
Re:Streaming? (Score:2)
I know what streaming is. I guess I didn't make it clear enough; the person that wrote the article doesn't necessarily know what streaming is. When you talk to the average computer-(semi/il)literate person, if they say streaming the best you can be sure of is that they're saying "downloading media".
Re:Streaming? (Score:2)
Re:Streaming? (Score:2)
Hah, sorry about the tone of my last reply then :P
I've always thought English should be parenthesized.
;)
Re:Streaming? (Score:2)
*slaps forehead*
Read the last part of my sentence again.
Re:Streaming? (Score:2)
No, there's a blatantly obvious message that contributes to the discussion. You know, the part that says "and you're tech-challenged." Pay special attention to the word "and". If the statements on both sides of the word "and" aren't true, then the entire statement isn't true. Have you been huffing paint?
Solution looking for a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for P2P where it is needed, but video over BitTorrent sounds like a solution looking for a problem.
Re:Solution looking for a problem (Score:2, Insightful)
If you download a nice encoded X264 file, plug your tv into computer, stereo into computer - you get lovely TV quality video with NO SKIPPING and BUFFERING. I just set up a few shows I want to watch, go to work, come home and watch them.
Now imagine a MythTV et all set top box with RSS feeds of bittorrents....
Re:Solution looking for a problem (Score:2)
bittorrent vs blu-ray (Score:2)
Unfortunately download services have been bulletproof on content protection. If anyone ever breaks into cinemanow, they can change the keys, which they can't do completely even with blu's millions of keys. That's going to keep it expensive.
I'd be really excited about this, if... (Score:3, Interesting)
I would be amazed to see any BT traffic over about 10kB/s these days. It's not Bit torrent... It's bit treacle.
Paying for video-on-demand and then having to wait a week to watch the show doesn't seem very enticing to me. Of course, Shaw has their own VOD mechanisms via digital cable so this filtering may just be a thinly veiled part of the Big Plan to Screw Consumers.
Re:I'd be really excited about this, if... (Score:3, Insightful)
FYI, I use Shaw as well and find that uTorrent [utorrent.com] can get around Ellacoya just fine using protcol encryption. Went from around 10k to hitting the caps with that one setting.
Cheers
Re:WTF is a.... (Score:2)
Re:WTF is a.... (Score:2)
payment and DRM? (Score:2)
will it be a lease based system or will it be a pay to "own" kinda system?
something tells me the format will be WMV, as it allows more flexible styles of DRM...
Re:payment and DRM? (Score:2)
$1.95/per min for the first five minutes, and $5.95 for each additional minute!*
*newer/popular titles may not fall under this pricing plan.
Giving the telcos a reason (Score:2)
Thanks Bittorrent for giving the telcos ammo to use against net neutrality when it goes to the Senate.
It's great, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's great, but... (Score:2)
Yeah. I'm shillin'. Oh well.
the people behind directX 10 (Score:2)
reward system (Score:3, Interesting)
a particular gb, let say, will allow you to convert it to credits used to pay for new movies. seeders and wb will be happy. i'm sure there will be a lot more of leechers than seeders.
It's a press release (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Upsides to BitTorrent as a distro meth. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll believe it when I see it.
New releases are AU$7 at my local video shop 2 mins walk away open 10am to 10pm 7 days. We watch most films we want to watch at the cinema anyway.
Better be very cheap, if they want me to help with distribution!
Re:commercial coercion is not easy when its free. (Score:2)
(The reason webhosting companies might sell at that price, is that they know you can't actuelly use all that bandwidth, when running on there
hardware, due to limitations in there software,cpu/harddisk and available memory.
Re:commercial coercion is not easy when its free. (Score:2, Informative)
My point is simply that bandwidth is very cheep relative to the cost of the content if the content is being